The 12 Days of Grounder Christmas
by theboardwalkbody
Summary: Alternate Universe: Sometime in the future the remaining 100 come across a village where the people have managed to uphold many of the same beliefs/traditions as the people on Earth before the bombs. In this village they meet and become friends with someone who is going to try to explain to them what Christmas is really like.


"What are you doing?" I heard Murphy ask as he looked up from the book he was reading as he lay on the loveseat in the living room with legs thrown over the arm opposite of his head.

"Christmas." I replied. I walked through the room toward the small mud room at the front of the house carrying a thick axe over my shoulder.

He swung his legs over the arm of the couch and sat up, putting the book he was reading off of the side. "With an axe?"

I turned back to look at him smiled and asked, "What do you know about Christmas?"

"Something about how it's to celebrate the birth of a religious figure, and people who celebrate it get gifts. I've heard nothing about axe murder. " he replied.

"Well, what do you know about the traditions and customs?" I asked.

"I thought that was it. " he answered.

I grinned, this was going to be a fun Christmas. "Come on," I said, "You're coming with me."

"I think I had a nightmare that started like this once. " Murphy responded as he eyed up the axe still slung over my shoulder. I opened my mouth to respond to his sassy comment but he cut me off.

"Yeah, I know. 'Shut up, Murphy', got it." he responded as he stood up to join me.

* * *

"How far in the woods are you dragging me? I'm pretty sure that we were already in deep enough an hour ago that you'd have been able to hide my dead body effectively enough. I'm pretty sure I'm going to die of frostbite if you don't swing that axe at me soon. " Murphy complained. "What are we doing out here anyway?"

"Were looking for the perfect tree. " I told him.

He stopped dead in his tracks. "You're joking. You dragged me out here, in the snow and the cold and the night for a TREE?" he asked incredulously.

I turned to look at him. he was stood with snow up to the ankles of his boots, he was crossing his arms across his chest, tucking his hands under his arms for warmth. the falling snow was standing out in contrast to his dark hair, his breaths were visible in the cold air.

"No, the PERFECT tree," I stressed. I couldn't help but smile, he had no idea what was going on and it amused me to no end. I understand how from his end it could be a little aggravating, but it was cute, too.

"What the he'll does that mean? It's a tree! " he said. He pointed to a tree to his left, "how about that one?" Without waiting for an answer he pointed to another nearby, "or that one"? He pointed to a few more trees and asked each time.

I laughed."That one has a huge chunk of branches missing, that one is too fat, that one too skinny, that one over there is dead, Murphy, and that last one is way too tall to fit in the living room."

His face screwed up in confusion and annoyance before he realized exactly what I said and realization dawned on his face. "Wait, you're putting it in the house?"

"Yep. " I grinned.

"You people make absolutely no sense. Alright, let's get this over with." he said and started walking again.

* * *

It took a bit of time but eventually we found one that was the right size for the room and had all it's branches intact. Murphy was a little pissed about the cold and the fact that he would be helping drag the 7foot tree back through the woods to the house but he didn't complain a bit when I let him have a turn at swinging the axe. Upon getting back home he was still no less baffled about why we were putting a tree in the house.

"Now what?" he asked after I had him help me prop the tree up in a large stand and centered it in front of a large window. "Did we spend two and a half hours in the woods to get a tree only to sit it in your house?"

"Well, yes and no. Now we decorate it and later on put presents underneath it." I explained.

"Decorate it? How the hell do you decorate a tree?" He asked.

"Everyone has different ways. I do it with colored lights, and a bunch of ornaments. Some people use white lights, or both colored and white, and no ornaments or only certain kinds, and some use tinsel or garland. Some use a star at the top, I use an angel. So yeah - all different ways." I told him as I looked the tree over to make sure it was set perfectly.

"I swear you are all insane." He said.

"That's Christmas." I smiled at him.

"So when are you decorating it?" he asked.

"Why? You want to help." I asked.

"No." he said, but I caught the glance he threw at the tree. He might have been confused but he was curious, too.

"Well then go and I'll do it myself." I lied. I wanted him to stay.

"I..." he looked at the tree then back to me. "You said you put something on the top?"

"Yeah. Why?" I asked him.

"Well, I mean. This thing is almost to the ceiling, and you're pretty short -" he started.

"Rude." I interrupted him with a smile.

"I'm just saying," he continued, "that maybe I should stick around. To help your short self reach the top, anyway."

I smiled, "Whatever you say Murphy."

I left him for only a few moments as I quickly went and pulled several tins and a few boxes full of ornaments and lights out of storage. When I got back he was standing as far back from the tree as he could and staring at it.

"Something wrong? Please tell me a squirrel didn't hitch a ride on it." I said as I put the stuff down and used my feet to push it over to the tree.

"Does that happen?" he asked as he turned to look at me.

"Yup. Not often, but it can." I told him. "What's wrong?"

"There's a huge ass tree in your house and it makes no sense." he said, looking back at the tree.

"It's Christmas, it doesn't have to make sense." I said. "Now plug these in and make sure they still work." I pushed a box of lights over to him and pulled another closer to myself.

After several moments of testing out lights it was finally time to put them on the tree. The winter sun was setting and the room was growing dark already. I flipped on some lights and a stereo for some background noise.

"Do you want hot chocolate?" I asked.

"Sure, I guess." he answered.

"Have you ever had hot chocolate?" I asked again. It still amazed me how the Sky People have never had things such as chocolate cake, or pies and things that are so readily available down here. It made sense, I suppose, since they don't exactly have cocoa farms or anything in space to make frivolous sweets - just rations of freeze-dried foods, but it was still hard to imagine.

Murphy shook his head. Unlike the 47 that had had the misfortune of being stuck in Mt. Weather (where they at least got to try different foods before being turned against and harvested) he had been living off of the land and whatever it had to offer for the last several months.

"You'll like it." I promised. And he did, naturally.

The two of us drank our hot chocolates, or several in Murphy's case, and decorated the tree. Putting the lights on was the boring part, as it was basically a one-person, that person being me, job. He sat there, mostly bored, for that part; sipping on his first and second cups of hot chocolate and then slightly annoyed as I dangled the lights over his shoulder and had him follow me in circles around the tree once we got to the middle section so that the strand wouldn't tangle in the lower branches. He may not have been amused at being covered in hundreds of lit multicolored Christmas tree lights but if you ask me it was adorable and I couldn't stop giggling when I turned around and saw him standing there behind me.

"I'm beginning to think you're lying about this just to get me to look like an ass." he said at some point.

I laughed, "Shut up, Murphy."

The decorating was a bit more fun for him. Watching him I think he rather enjoyed looking at all the different ornaments my family and I had come to collect over the years. They were all different shapes and sizes, some were characters from cartoons I recognized, heard about, and didn't; some were modeled after animals; some were of santa claus's and elves and reindeer; they were all different and I loved all of them. I left him to the fun ones and took the plain, round balls to put on myself. I had to remind him several times to scatter them around the tree and not put them all in one place, but he got it eventually.

It took about four hours total. Finally we could put the angel on the top and be done with it.

"Murphy, grab the angel out of that small box over there - carefully!" I pointed to a box back by the couch across the room. He did as I asked and brought it over to me. The thing was ancient, probably about 150 years old. It was stained with age, and the fabric was a little thin and missing in places, but it was still beautiful. My grandmother had passed it down to us, where she got it I can't say. Murphy eyed it and the top of the tree. I left him a moment and grabbed the chair that we'd been using to decorate the top of the tree. I stood on it, carefully, and went to put the angel on.

"Wait." Murphy said. I looked down at him, arms still extended to put the angel on. He hesitated a moment. "Can I?"

I smiled, "Of course." I got down and handed the angel to him and watched him climb up on the chair and place it at the top of the tree. I told him where to plug it in and she lit up. The tree was now complete.

Murphy climbed off the chair and I took his hand and led him back to the couch. I switched off all the lights so the only lights on were the ones on the tree. We sat down together and admired the beauty of it.

"I still don't really understand why you have a tree in your house, but I can see why you like it." He said.

"I don't understand why there's a tree in my house, either, to be honest. It's just something people do for Christmas. And it's pretty." I told him.

I was tired, we both were, and I rested my head on his shoulder. He turned his head and looked at me, almost as confused as he was about the tree, but before he turned his head away to look at the tree again I caught a smile forming on his lips. I don't know how long he stayed up staring at the tree but I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer and fell asleep leaning against him.


End file.
